Infantry Behavior

[General_solomon]

first off, congrats to the developers for releasing the game. Just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on how the infantry has improved.

is tow the true successor to close combat? your thoughts are welcome.

also, if you anyone has a AAR they can post on youtube. I love watching user created Video AAR's.

thanks a bunch.

[WillyPete2171]

first off, congrats to the developers for releasing the game. Just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on how the infantry has improved.

is tow the true successor to close combat? your thoughts are welcome.

also, if you anyone has a AAR they can post on youtube. I love watching user created Video AAR's.

thanks a bunch.

I feel that the infantry has improved greatly since the demo came out. The are quite repsonsive, seem to work together well and even have little hand to hand combat when they fight in close quarters. They did a fine job fixing it. Infantry also have good survivability while moving over long ranges now. Overall, Infantry has been fixed!

Now, I noticed something els thats bothering me. I cant seem to be able to get tanks to fire at and destroy buildings. Has anyone been able to?

[Knokke]

I still have a few complaints about the infantry. But I'll wait till the patch is released to make my opinion.

First complaint as to do with soldiers being over eager to capture and man ennemy guns and mortars in missions created with the mission generator. Not having played the campaign yet, I don't know if this behavior is there too. It should be fixed in the patch, but right now, the soldiers are attracted like flies by the crewable units (so much so, that it will override any other current order); they'll move to man the guns regardless of the threat, even if there are tanks or ennemy infantry in the vicinity. They love their gun so much that they don't want to leave it more than an instant when you're trying to tow the gun with a vehicle, meaning that most of the time, attaching fails because the guys man the gun again before the attaching procedure is finished.

I have a complain also about the infantry ability to spot. they seems to have a very poor vision, specially when entrenched, as they can't see tanks only one or two meters from them, very often can't see ennemy infantry sitting right beside them in the trench, even when engaged in hand to hand combat. Sometime, they're not even able to spot an unmanned MG right next to them (seen that in the demo, not confirmed in release yet). Impossibility to spot anything outside the trenches might be linked to the fact that the soldiers very often keep kneeling, without standing up to have a look outside (difficult to determine). I would expect them to stand up if their stance is set to standing, unless ordered to ambush (in which case they should be kneeling to remain hidden until an ennemy is heard close from their position, and then stand up to engage with rifle fire), or unless too many shots are landing close to them and they're pinned down. Infantry kneeling in trenches should stand up from time to time to have a look outside, and should stand up and engage with rifle fire in spite of the kneeling stance if an ennemy is in sight (same thing with peoples in building - there is no reason for them to kneel (unless ordered to ambush and no ennemy is close) if it means they can't see trough the windows openings.

There is also still this problem with inability to use grenades properly: throwing AT grenade at fast moving tanks, or normal grenades at running infantry without allowing for deflection is a waste of ammo. The AI should throw their grenades only at stationary targets, or targets moving slowly. Very often, after having launched a grenade, a soldier runs toward the spot he targeted as if assaulting for hand to hand combat (without waiting for the grenade to have exploded). This very often result in the death of the thrower instead of the death of the intented victim (as the victims are very good at running away from grenades)

Not only the infantry, but also crews of tanks and guns seems to have difficulty to choose the right ammo for the right job. No need to use the best armor piercing ammo to destroy a car. This could be related to the ammo having been previously selected by the player. The AI will fire that ammo at any target, not only the one first intended, and often, when this ammo has been shot, will keep using the same type of ammo regardless of the target (I've seen 88mm guns shooting at infantry repeatedly with AT shells)

An infantryman having been ordered to prepare to use a PWM grenade at an approaching tank, will fire the PWM at infantry, if someone becomes a target before the tank is in sight, instead of choosing a more appropriate grenade and keep the AT for the tank that is coming.

Also, the infantry has some difference of opinion with me, as to which weapon is the best to pick (german infantry will prefer mosin to their K-98 grenade launching rifle). Also, when discarding a weapon for a better one, why do they keep the ammo clips they can no longer use?

As to the K-98 grenade launching rifle: it seems that it can't be used to deliver indirect fire (the guy with the grenade selected will fire the rifle; a grenade firing sound will be heard, but no grenade will be launched unless direct line of sight with the target is achieved)

Now, on the positive side: I really love the new way the "scout" or "sneak" button is working now: in africa, it meant that the soldiers would crawl toward their destination. Now, the soldier will enter a "cautious" mode of deplacement only , meaning that their body stance will depend of the stance selected (standing, kneeling, prone) rather than crawling as a default. So they now can move forward cautiously, faster, ready to start crawling if an ennemy is spotted.

I like also the possibility to make them move clicking on a spot with the attack button selected: they'll move with more caution, and stop to engage with rifle fire, resuming their progression only when they dont have a target in sight. Much better for survivability than the default assault order. There seems to be one drawback, though: infantry in trenches given this attack order will very often climb out of the trenches to take to shortest route to their destination, even if this destination is a spot in the same trench system (and leaving cover, they start to die pretty fast)